Now we're talking about something that Congressman Paul claims he didn't write. I bet he's even telling the truth. It probably was his newsletter editor.

It's still as big a problem.

You often see candidates throwing blame on their campaign staffers. National campaigns are large organizations, subordinates will do stupid things without anybody above approving it.

That's still a problem.

Ron Paul's newsletter, though, wasn't a national campaign. There weren't layers of management separating him from what was happening. There weren't thousands of employees and volunteers that needed to be managed. It was a political fanzine for all practical purposes.

The federal government dwarfs a national campaign. It's a much bigger management job. If Ron Paul failed to manage a little newsletter all those years, he shouldn't be managing the country.

(Of course, by that standard, GWB's spectacular management failures should have disqualified him out of the gate.)

Comments

Ron Paul is a whack job of the first order. The only reason the guy is attracting what attention he has is due to a bunch of overly savvy Web geeks who are jonesing for something "cool" to root for politically.

Paul espouses what would traditionally paint him a Libertarian but he hasn't declared himself one, officially. Had he done so then it'd suddenly become a whole heckuvalot harder for him to have gotten on ballots nationwide. He'd also have to contend with the Pat Buchanan followers who've taken over the bulk of what was the Libertarian Party. He'd have been expending so much of his energy dealing with them that there'd have been nothing left for national campaigning.

So, by calling himself a Republican, Ron Paul gets the access that comes with being part of a mainstream political party whilst spouting a "radical" a "new" and a "cool" political line. A line which wouldn't push him above the day to day fray in the Libertarian world.

The bulk of the folks who are pushing him in the Republican Party seem to be doing so due to it's being fashionable. He's not one of the tired old faces that are so long familiar from the GOP side of the aisle. But Paul's views are horribly, horribly unworkable and, at best, are naive. His idea of reducing the US military down to just a cadre sized force is inviting death and destruction to our shores the likes of which we've never seen. Every previous time the US has tried facing the world with but a "cadre sized" military we've wound up in wars that have been horribly costly for the first couple of years it takes to train up and expand the military into something effective.

Back when it took weeks to cross the Atlantic and when the most destructive weapon in anyone's arsenal was a muzzle loading cannon that could barely spit a round three miles away, this minimal military policy was something deemed acceptable. Nowadays?

And that's just to start when it comes to the good Mr. Ron.

His dodging and weaving and waffling about his newsletter is showing another enormous shortfall to the man and his agenda.

I see Paul as a candidate who has positions that appeal to a broad range of voters, at least a broad range of voters who chose only to see the one or two positions they agree with. Nevermind all the other positions they absolutely would deplore in any other candidate.

He's run as a Libertarian in the past. These days, though, the libertarians are casting him as a sell-out.

I still love watching him (and Huckabee) throw the party leadership into fits.

Back in 2000 it was unbelievably close. What a helluva toss up. A choice between two sons of privilege with nothing else going for them. Al was a lifelong politician with a sanctimonious streak a mile wide. Dubya was the living breathing stereotype of upperclass Texas twit who couldn't even say nuclear without the world laughing. Sigh...

At least we could console ourselves that Daddy Bush made sure Junior was surrounded by enough capable adults that he couldn't do to much damage. And, largely, that worked. At least for the first few years. The second term is where the wheels start to both grind down and to come off. The Shrub's presidency is proof of this once again. Sigh...

Actually, as far as having success up on the Hill and accomplishing his legislative agenda in an expeditious fashion, George Bush Jr. fared pretty well for the first few years of his terms. Mind you, a lot of that got moved along by 9/11. What might've gotten bogged down in Congress had there not been any other more pressing issues got zipped through instead once the Towers came down.

I'm not saying what he got done was fully agreeable, just that he did get it done and was well served by those around him.

I also have absolutely no doubt that had 9/11 not happened during his first term that Bush would've been but a single term president. No doubt in my mind. There's too much water under that bridge to even begin speculating about what the political landscape would've looked like here in the US had there been no successful terrorist attack during those years.

You remember the whole Enron failure and "secret oil exec meetings" scandals of 2001? Those had the potential to be a real albatross around Dubya's neck. Come 9/11, Bush slipped that yoke right quick. Just shows how utterly superfluous those "major issues" were to begin with.